Liberia, Sept. 11 -- IN JUNE, THE country watched a vessel - the IB Atlantic IV - sit off Grand Cape Mount County for the better part of a week while officials debated what to do about it, before it slipped away and had to be chased down and seized in Ivorian waters. No drugs were ever officially confirmed aboard. What was confirmed, over and over, was that Liberia's maritime security moved too slowly to matter.

NOW THERE IS a second mystery vessel - this one not off some distant coastline, but docked directly behind Monrovia Central Prison, the facility currently holding foreign nationals tied to the country's largest-ever drug case. Authorities have offered no explanation for how it got there, or why.

WE DO NOT know yet what this boat...